Saturday, 24 October 2015

﻿I have been on a quilting workshop today with Bristol quilter, Jan Hassard, at Busy Bees Patchwork in Newport. Here you can see the blocks I completed today pinned to my design wall. It was a great day where we got an insight into how Jan works her magic with colour, but as always, too short and you wish you could spend the next 48 hours completing the project.

Jan sent instructions beforehand, so that we could do most of our fabric cutting beforehand, which was great, as it gave us more time during the day to actually focus on the design and machine stitch some strips together. I am using batiks for this project, largely from the generous bundle I won from The Objects of Design, over a year ago.Along with this, my head is full of ideas of projects I want to do. Dear Jane is keeping me quiet, but I need to catch up with my Miniature Block of the Month, I am making a quilt for our camper van, and I have quilts to quilt. Also, I am finding it hard to settle as I am quite sure Bonnie Hunter is due to release details of her 2015 Mystery Quilt soon ....

Thursday, 22 October 2015

I should have saved this post for Halloween as C2 Streak of Lightning had some of those 'scary' diamond shapes in it. In my quilting life I have learnt the hard way never to take diamond shaped pieces for granted - you need to keep a very close eye on them. I think I nailed it on this one.Some of the 'eagle eyed' out there ( yes, I know who you are ...) have spotted that I am adding my own special touches to the blocks, especially noting the similarity to this and the last block. It works for me ... how else would you know it was mine? ;)Techniques: English Paper PiecingPieces: 19

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

﻿The base of this block is all English Paper pieced, but the two triangles on the corners are appliqued. It took me 1.5 hours to sew those two on last night. It didn't help that I forgot to take the paper out the first time around. It appears that the applique shapes which are small and angular are most troublesome to me, but I can see the attraction of appliqueing larger, smoother shaped pieces.Still orange.

Monday, 19 October 2015

Draw 8 was perhaps one of the easiest sets of blocks I have done in a long time and it was a nice change to be using some different fabrics. Thank you to the Followers of my blog who regularly post a comment, it certainly keeps up the motivation.The next Draw has been doneC2 - Streak of LighteningH2 - Jacob AnthonyH8 - Eaton's CrossroadsM2 - Duff's BluffThe colour for this Draw is Orange - back to the same old routine ....

Sunday, 18 October 2015

Do you notice how all those dots on the fabric line up? During the Nearly Insane quilt journey I became a ' ussying cutting' addict and now if I can fussy cut, I will. Again, a simple block.I noticed over at that Temecula Quilt Co blog that they have recently revealed their Dear Jane quilt completion, if you want to pop over and take a look.

Saturday, 17 October 2015

This block looks quite simple, but if you start adding up all those little triangles around the edge of the block you will see that there are more pieces involved than originally meets the eye. There are 36 in total, which for this Dear Jane quilt is quite a lot. A bit more fussy cutting too.﻿

Dear Jane Quilt - Block D9 Uncle Richard

Part of this block has a plain border around the edge. This was useful in reigning in the block to its 4.5" size. You will see that once I had finished the hand stitching on the block it had a bowl shape to it, but nothing a hot steam iron couldn't sort out.Techniques: English Paper PiecingPieces: 36

Friday, 16 October 2015

﻿You will see I am continuing on the 'yellow' blocks. The fabric colour is not green and it is not orange - it is not really yellow, but it seems to fall between the other two. This particular fabric is from Kim Diehl's 'Heritage Hollow' range and I think it is really pretty.Another variation of a nine-patch block. Uncle Homer must have been a straightforward chap.

Thursday, 15 October 2015

Dear Jane quilt block M10 Simple Simon is, as it says on the tin - simple. A simple nine-patch block. The progress of these blocks are much quicker than the Nearly Insane blocks, so it is easy to get a quick fix and get quick results.BTW I haven't started the Farmers Wife Sew Along. It is a quilt that I hope to do in the future, but DJ is my top priority at the moment.

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

It is my birthday this week, so keeping up with tradition, I am doing an review of my progress on my Dear Jane quilt so far. As you can see it is a sea of orange, with one lone red block. In the past two months I have completed

21 blocks 21/169 (12%)

4 Border Triangles 4/56 (7%)

This works out about 10 blocks a month, so an estimated finish date would be about December 2016, unless I win the lottery and my revised schedule allows me to sew all day long...
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Dear Jane block preparation

﻿With so many little blocks, a lot of time is taken in preparing them in packs ready for sewing. I think the cutting out for some blocks has taken longer than actually sewing them together.

Dear Jane Electric Quilt software - October 2015

﻿To monitor my overall progress here is the image of the progress so far taken in my Dear Jane Electric Quilt software. I am enjoying using Electric Quilt for this project as I did with the last sampler quilt. This image is updated an on the sidebar regularly.

Tuesday, 13 October 2015

So here are the first triangle border blocks for the Dear Jane quilts. I am pleased to have these under my belt as I don't want to have the border to do at the end. I have seen many Dear Jane quilts where the maker decided against the border, probably weary of the process, but I definitely want a border.Onto Draw 8. These blocks look super simple.A6 - Uncle HomerD9 - Uncle RichardM10 - Simple SimonM12 - HopscotchThis round will be in YELLOW. Hurrah - a different colour. The yellow fabrics are quite murky, neither green or orange, so designated as yellow for the convenience of this project.

Monday, 12 October 2015

Another triangle block done. I made an alteration to this block. The original has long slivers up each side, but I have just extended the adjacent blocks to eliminate any unnecessary aggravation during construction.
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Dear Jane Quilt - Border Triangle Block TR7 Norway's Fjord

Here is a picture of the reverse as a reminder that I am doing this all by hand using English Paper Piecing.

Sunday, 11 October 2015

This border triangle block, Fedelia's Hearts has always been one which stood out for me whenever I saw a Dear Jane quilt in an exhibition. Again, I was a bit worried about it, but the appliqued hearts went on quite easily and with only 13 pieces it was quick. I seem to be saying that about all the blocks. I am certainly preferring the speed that the blocks get completed versus the Nearly Insane quilt, but I guess overall it will probably take the same time to get together.

Saturday, 10 October 2015

You have seen this Dear Jane quilt block before (G7 - Indianapolis), but today it is proudly wearing its new cornerstones and sashings. The original quilt doesn't have actual cornerstones, but I had a bit of fun with the cornerstones on my Nearly Insane quilt and I think a little extra thought on this area can take a quilt to the next level.﻿

Firstly, the sashing. If I require lots of the same squares or rectangle shapes for my English paper piecing I usually use the Table function in Microsoft Word. You can set the size of the table cells in the software and then print out a blank table on regular printer paper ready for cutting up in the shapes that you need. The sashing will be the same as my background fabric.
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Dear Jane Quilt Sashing 0.5" x 4.5"

You can see I managed to get about 30 sashing strips on one sheet, each one being 1/2" x 4.5" and here are some of them prepared with their tacking stitches ready for when I need them.﻿﻿

'Hearthside Seasons' by Kim Diehl

For the cornerstones I am using one of the 'Hearthside Seasons' fabrics by Kim Diehl. I thought I could fussy cut the stars for the middle. The cornerstone squares below are English paper pieced and are just 1/2" x 1/2 Inch.

Friday, 9 October 2015

﻿I would say this Dear Jane border triangle, Sally's Steeple, is a pretty typical Dear Jane block, with a bit of piecing and a bit of applique. I appliqued the shapes in the centre, as well as the very top triangle, rather than have to deal with thin edge bits at the point. I am pleased to be doing some of these triangles as I don't want the border to be left until the end.
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Suzi the cat

I am pleased to say that my Dear Jane efforts have encouraged some of you to resurrect your Dear Jane projects - most notably Sally over at Objects of Design. You will see her doing the same blocks as me but it in Kaffe Fassett fabrics. This is one of my favourite blogs as you can see not only lots of patchwork and quilting activity, but the internet being used in its purest form - to show pictures of cats and kittens. I will admit, Suzi the cat has not been as enthusiastic about the Dear Jane quilt as she was about the Nearly Insane quilt. Snoozing in the autumn sun is her current preferred activity.Techniques: English Paper Piecing and AppliquePieces: 14

Thursday, 8 October 2015

I was nervous about starting these edge triangles for the Dear Jane quilt. I thought they would be difficult. But just like the square blocks a triangle comes together quite easily. Just 23 pieces meant it got done whilst watching the new series of Strictly Come Dancing.

Autumn 2015 - Horse Chestnut Conkers

﻿﻿I could quite happily sit all day sewing or working quilting on my long arm machine, but these days my body is less forgiving. To counter this desire to sit all day and sew I try to take an early walk each day in my local countryside. It is a great way to watch the seasons change and this morning I couldn't resist picking up these beautiful conkers from the horse chestnut trees that were lying on the ground. A true sign of autumn here in the UK ...Techniques: English Paper PiecingPieces: 23

Tuesday, 6 October 2015

Here are the latest blocks. I quite enjoyed this round of applique and overall these blocks were straightforward.Anyway onto Draw 7. Great excitement! I have drawn my first border triangles. With such a dramatic change in the development of the Dear Jane quilt it is reassuring to know that this will also be in ORANGE.

Sunday, 4 October 2015

I was watching Mastermind on the television the other night and decided that the 'Dear Jane' quilt would be a good specialist subject to choose with all the block names and numbers. This little block was easy to do and I am enjoying how quickly some of these blocks are getting done.
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Buffalo Treehopper

BTW, here is a photo of a Buffalo Treehopper, a bug native to North America. Check out his markings - do you think it looks like the block?Techniques: English Paper PiecingPieces: 15

Saturday, 3 October 2015

It was back to applique for this block. Like block A7 Dad's Plaids (which seems to be a favourite with a few of my Followers), I gathered the fabric around a cardboard form, gave them a blast of spray starch and then pressed them into submission with a good steam press. This seems to work well with the larger applique shapes.﻿

Dear Jane Quilt - Block F13 Tour de France

﻿I have actually done the F13 Tour de France Dear Jane block before. It was the block they chose in our Dear Jane workshop at the Nantes (France) Dear Jane exhibition in 2013. I have had it pinned to my noticeboard since then along with other Dear Jane memorabilia from the day, which has served as motivation over the past few years whilst I finished my Nearly Insane quilt.
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Tour de France 2015, Brittany

Also, I don't think I mentioned that I actually went over to see the 2015 Tour this year when it was in Britanny, France. It was brilliant, a great atmosphere. That was back in the summer. Here in the UK, Autumn is almost in full flow and some of my long arm quilting customers are getting ready for Christmas ...

Thursday, 1 October 2015

﻿I think this is the first bit of applique that I have enjoyed. Each of the melons are about 2" long and I was stitching them onto fabric that was still backed with its paper template which made it behave whist I stitched. I had to remember to slip the paper out just in time ... To get the shape of the melons I gathered the fabric around a paper form / template, gave it a blast of spray starch and then gave it a good press. The points aren't REALLY pointy, but I think I have got away with it.Techniques: English Paper Piecing, AppliquePieces: 8